Vicious Circles
by ChildrenOfTheBarricades
Summary: AU. Takes place about 3 months after the end of POTO. At the end of POTO, Christine chose to take her freedom. So she went and left Raoul with Erik, who is now angrier than ever now that he's lost Christine. Instead of killing Raoul straight away, Erik locked him up in his doorless mirror torture chamber.


**Warning: Dark. Very dark. For me, anyway. This is darker than anything else I've written. And there is Raoul-bashing (in the literal sense of the term). And I actually feel the need to apologise to Raoul for everything I put the poor guy through in this... **

**Summary: AU. Takes place about 3 months after the end of POTO. At the end of POTO, Christine chose to take her freedom. So she went and left Raoul with Erik, who is now angrier than ever now that he's lost Christine. Instead of killing Raoul straight away, Erik locked him up in his doorless mirror torture chamber. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Erik, Raoul, or anything/anyone else connected with POTO. I just borrow them sometimes to write stuff like this.**

**Vicious Circles**

Raoul looked up as a shadow fell over him. As always, he did not see how his captor entered the doorless room. And he was rapidly losing the will to care. Even if he did discover a way to escape, the chain around his ankles would prevent him from being able to do anything about his discovery. So he merely took a deep breath and looked up at the Phantom, glaring slightly and remaining silent. He had learnt, after many beatings, that Erik must always be the one to start a conversation – if there was to be one. However, the unbroken piercing stare of his captor upon him mixed with the silence was slowly starting to rub his already raw nerves. When he could bear it no longer, he threw caution to the winds and spoke. He had barely said more than a syllable when the back of the Phantom's hand connected with the boy's cheek with a sharp _crack_ that echoed through the chamber. Raoul winced and groaned softly as he cupped his throbbing cheek, glaring up at the Phantom who merely smirked and knelt down so that he was level with the Vicomte.

"Hurts doesn't it, M'sieur le Vicomte?" The Phantom's voice was low and soft, filled with venom and a strange morbid fascination. "Tell me, what is the worst part for you? The pain? The humiliation? Perhaps the knowledge that no one is coming to help you?" He smirked again as the boy's eyes lit up with hate. Finally, the pampered Vicomte would know what he had had to go through: the endless days of fear, starvation, suffering, being forced to remain against his will in a place where he had no control over anything... Finally the Vicomte would know how it felt.

Raoul looked into his enemy's eyes and stubbornly kept quiet, refusing to answer the Phantom's question. He knew what the man's plan was; despite what he obviously seemed to think, Raoul was not stupid. He had worked it out after only a few days of being trapped in the infernal room. And he had sworn to himself, for sake of himself and Christine, that he would outlive every punishment the Phantom could come up with, and still have his sanity by the end. Raoul was young, strong; he knew he could do it. He just had to wait... The Phantom must have sensed Raoul's withdrawal into his mind and Raoul let out a small cry of pain as he was hit again, the ring on the Phantom's little finger cutting into his cheek, drawing blood. Raoul hissed as the Phantom's skeletal fingers were twisted into his filthy matted hair and his head was drawn back, the Phantom's voice whispering threateningly in his ear. "Answer my question, boy. Answer, and I will consider feeding you soon."

Raoul blinked several times, wincing at the sharp pain in his scalp as the older man mercilessly tugged the boy's hair. Normally, he would think about his choice of answers to such a question, choose one that would perhaps give Erik ammunition for mocking him, but would hopefully spare him more physical pain. But now, with the mention of food, Raoul was reminded of everything he had been put through since Christine had chosen her freedom: the endless taunts, the beatings, hunger so intense he thought he might die... The Vicomte thought back over all this and more, and rage filled him until he could do nothing but blurt out the only honest answer he had. "The worst part? The fear that when all this is done...I'll become like you."

The Phantom froze and stared at his victim. Whatever he had expected the boy's answer to be, it most certainly had not been that. He finally regained his senses and spoke in a quiet, matter-of-fact hiss. "When all this is done, Vicomte, you will be dead." He felt some small glimmer of satisfaction as the boy's face showed a hint of fear before settling back into its practiced expression of defiance. "And you could never be me."

Raoul fought against the hand gripping his hair and twisted his head to look at his captor in the eyes, no longer caring about the words that poured from him. "Is that what you decided about your gypsy master too? That you would never be like him?" In the end, he supposed that given what he had said, the Phantom reacted rather well. Raoul whimpered as his face was smashed into the floor, causing blood to flow from his nose, and coughed as a hard fist was driven into his kidneys. Raoul rolled over onto his back, groaning in pain as he stared up at the Phantom. He had never seen the man so angry, not even that night when Christine had left him. His eyes were fairly blazing with rage and Raoul imagined, for a horrible moment, that they had turned red.

The Phantom reached out and grabbed the torn collar of the Vicomte's shirt, dragging him closer until their faces were just inches apart. "Do not speak of what you do not know, monsieur," the man spat through gritted teeth. "It may not bode well for your survival." So saying, he shook Raoul once and flung him away against the wall.

The chamber echoed with the clank of the chain around Raoul's feet as it clattered against the floor, but Raoul was only dimly aware of it. His head collided hard with the solid mirrored wall behind him and his vision swum as he shook his head, trying to clear the distant ringing from his ears. He no longer knew exactly how the words were still making their way from his mouth, yet they were. And he was in no position to stop them. "You think I don't know? I don't know your story? I know enough, monsieur. I know enough..." He paused to spit out a mouthful of blood and tried to focus on the blurred image of the Phantom, standing there tensed in front of him. Even with his failing vision he could tell the man was shaking. "A young man, captured by people he knew nothing of yet grew to fear, locked up for his appearance, reduced to a plaything, a form of entertainment by his captors, beaten, starved, terrified..." He paused again and a small smile played around his mouth as he shook his head, a few drops of blood falling onto his lap and on the ground. "But which one of us was I describing, monsieur?" He clumsily dragged a hand across his forehead, clearing away a small river of blood that was almost threatening to blind him. "You have become what you once must have hated, monsieur."

The Phantom took a deep breath in through his clenched teeth and suddenly lashed out, a grim smile appearing on his face as his foot connected with Raoul's ribs, drawing a yelp from the boy at the same time. "You dare compare us?!" he roared at the trembling, curled-up figure on the floor. "You, the rich pampered spoilt little fop who got everything he ever so much as looked at? You are nothing like me, boy! You have no idea what I have been put through because of my damned face!"

"Your face is a cause for your conditions now. It's not a justification..." Raoul coughed for a long while before wheezing out a few more words. "I have never condemned your face. Only your actions. You murdered two men, monsieur. In cold blood. There is no other way to say it. And you did not do it because of your deformity..."

"Then why else would I have done it?!" The deep snarl echoed and Raoul paused for a while before giving his answer.

"Because it was the only answer you had. You wanted to scare us? You murdered Buquet. You wanted to sing your opera with Christine? You murdered Piangi. Murder is your only answer, monsieur." The boy closed his eyes and covered his face wearily with his arm, before mumbling a final tired declaration. "You have grown to fill the gypsy's boots well. How am I at filling yours?"

With a wild cry of rage, Erik grabbed his cane with a skull as a handle and began battering the body that lay at his feet until the wood snapped. His rage somewhat sated by the outburst, he spat at the quivering thing before him, and turned and stalked out of the hidden door in the corner of the room, marveling at his own ability to stay upright as he strode through the river of blood. Once outside the room, with the door bolted and locked, Erik straightened up and wiped the bloodied cuffs of his sleeves and trousers and changed his shoes. He was clean again. Turning, he gave a final glare back at the door, as though he could see the damned boy through it, and he muttered darkly: "I am nothing like my master, boy."

**(A/N: I honestly don't know where this dragged itself from. Actually, I do – it came from the frustration at all the Erik-phangirls. You know, the ones who disregard anything bad he does and are convinced that all he needs is Christine and/or a self-insert Mary Sue and he'll become a little saint. Well...no. Hate to break it to y'all but the guy is a psychopath. Seriously, a psychopath. And I thought some people may need reminding of that. And no, this isn't just me being a Raoul-fan. Even when I preferred Erik (I know! Shock horror!) I was still aware that the guy was utterly insane.**

**Anyways, rant over and...please R&R. Especially the second R. Reviews make my day (sad as that sounds).)**


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